Reports: Cowboys Stadium gets first college title game

April 24, 2013|Sports Xchange

Fans wait to exchange tickets, at the Northwest corner box office, to Section 215A after the fire marshall had closed a portion of that section, before the start of Super Bowl XLV where the Green Bay Packers face the Pittsburgh Steelers at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, Sunday, February 6, 2011. (Brandon Wade / McClatchy-Tribune)

Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will be the site of the first College Football Playoff championship game in 2015, according to multiple reports Wednesday.

An official announcement is expected later in the day during a meeting of BCS conference commissioners in Pasadena, Calif., where a formal vote was to be taken.

Tampa, Fla., the only other bidder for the inaugural title game, reportedly made a strong presentation and lost out in a close call.

The commissioners also were to reveal the final three bowl sites for the semifinal rotation. ESPN.com reported late Wednesday that the Cotton Bowl, played in Cowboys Stadium, the Chick-fil-A Bowl in Atlanta and the Fiesta Bowl in Glendale, Ariz., were chosen.

The Rose, Orange and Sugar bowls previously were selected to be in the six-bowl semifinal rotation. The first semifinal games in the new system that replaces the current BCS format will be played in the Rose and Sugar on Jan. 1, 2015, The initial CFP championship game is set for Jan. 12, 2015.

The semifinal format will pit the No. 1 vs. the No. 4 seed and the No. 2 against the No. 3. The Orange and Cotton bowls will get the semis in 2016, followed by the Fiesta and Chick-fil-A in 2017, according to ESPN.

A committee of 14 to 20 members will determine the four qualifiers. The makeup of the committee has yet to be determined, but the commissioners were planning to discuss the process during their meetings this week.

On Tuesday, the BCS commissioners announced the new system would be called simply the College Football Playoff, which will replace the BCS after the upcoming season.